dephh: "We were too harsh on Lake [at first], we needed him to make mistakes"

M80's coach Rory "dephh" Jackson spoke to Dust2.us ahead of their best-of-one match against familiar foes Wildcard. Fresh off the team's success at ESL Pro League, dephh told Dust2.us that the team is still hyper focused on the upcoming RMRs, and spoke highly of new addition Mason "Lake" Sanderson. The full interview can be found below on YouTube, with key snippets from the interview underneath.

It’s become quite a rivalry between M80 and Wildcard. They feel like now’s the time they can get a strong opening win versus M80. How do you feel about the opening match?

We’ve traded blows online, but it’s very different here on the stage. Unfortunately we wish we were playing their entire team, but they’ve got a stand-in. We want to play them at their strongest at a LAN event, and I’m sure in the RMR that might happen. They’ve got a sub and they’re going to come out swinging for sure, but we’ll be prepped and ready.

The RMRs are fast approaching. How important is it for you guys to get these reps in here and at EPL?

It’s the main focus for everyone right now. All these [events] in between are just filler tournaments, or tournaments where teams just want to keep sharp. But I think during the gap between the final tournaments and China, the bootcamps teams are going to result in teams showing up to the RMR with totally different playstyles. The only thing I don’t think we’re going to see are roster changes.

What did you think of how the RMR qualifiers shook out, in particular the NRG upset?

We were so focused on ourselves, but we were paying attention between games. The [NRG upset] was a weird one because they’re still very new, and they did big changes. Tthey were playing super well online, but then they have these ruts they get into. With MR12, this game right now has this random aspect that maybe MR15 in CS:GO never had.

Lake has been doing really well in place off Mario "malbsMd" Samayoa. Has he exceeded those expectations?

He’s just a super confident kid. I mean he’s from bumfuck nowhere in Oklahoma, and he just exudes this confidence. I’ve only felt his nervousness on stage just a few times. I think malbsMd is a top ten player right now, and it’s very hard to fill that gap, but Lake’s done a really good job. I feel we’ve been a bit too harsh on him at the start, and then we had this talk and said “we need to pull back, we need him to make mistakes and find his playstyle like with Mario.” Mario wasn’t perfect at the start when he joined, but he found his form, and we’re seeing that with Lake too.

M80 is scheduled to face off against Wildcard during the first round of matches today at ESL Challenger Atlanta.